Welcome to the world of German media. This is your first day as a SPIEGEL ONLINE trainee. Your mission: To become an expert on transatlantic relations. Let's get started:

Lesson number one: The United States government is always wrong.

Lesson number two: Bush is evil - no matter what.

Now let's examine a current case: The United States wants to engage in multilateral cooperation, negotiation and engagement on the environment and climate change. They want to sit down and compromise on how best to reduce global greenhouse emissions in an effort to avoid confrontation. So - how do we spin this development in accordance with lessons one and two? Exactly...we sensationalize America's attempts to reach-out and cooperate as a hostile "offensive against Chancellor Merkel's climate plans."

Now let's step outside the classroom: The language is quasi-military ("Vorstoss" / "startet Offensive"). The photo aggressive. The background accented with hyper-patriotic flag-waving.

What does it all mean? Well, this is clearly a packaging and portrayal of events intended to upset and emotionalize the pacifistic, left-leaning audience. This despite the fact that the Merkel government has openly welcomed the willingness of the United States to move the discussion forward - a fact that SPIEGEL ONLINE readily acknowledges.

Further, this is the biased reporting readers have been conditioned to expect after years of hate-America coverage. The covers speak for themselves:

After years of the above, how could it be any different? Bush - the perennial villain - the most dangerous man on the planet - could not be portrayed in any other way. The established "bad guy" template has grown so thick and entrenched that it would be impossible to shatter. And - with Bush now relatively unpopular in the USA - the cost of putting emotion and vilification before reason and analysis is historically low in covering the US administration.

So Why Does the US Reject the German Position on the Environment...Do Most Media Consumers in Germany Really Know?

Above all, there has been virtually no attempt to explain why the U.S. government rejects certain aspects of the German position - or to explain the environmental policies of the current administration. Further, they chronically fail to consider the following points, made so eloquently by Robert Samuelson in 2005:

"Europe is the citadel of hypocrisy. Considering Europeans'
contempt for the United States and George Bush for not embracing the
Kyoto Protocol, you'd expect that they would have made major reductions
in greenhouse gas emissions -- the purpose of Kyoto. Well, not exactly.
From 1990 (Kyoto's base year for measuring changes) to 2002, global
emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas, increased
16.4 percent, reports the International Energy Agency. The U.S.
increase was 16.7 percent, and most of Europe hasn't done much better.

On their present courses, many European
countries will miss their Kyoto targets for 2008-2012. To reduce
emissions significantly, Europeans would have to suppress driving and
electricity use; that would depress economic growth and fan popular
discontent. It won't happen. Political leaders everywhere deplore
global warming -- and then do little. Except for Eastern European
nations, where dirty factories have been shuttered, few countries have
cut emissions. Since 1990 Canada's emissions are up 23.6 percent;
Japan's, 18.9 percent. (...)

What we have now is a respectable charade. Politicians and advocates
make speeches, convene conferences and formulate plans. They pose as
warriors against global warming. The media participate in the resulting
deception by treating their gestures seriously. One danger is that some
of these measures will harm the economy without producing significant
environmental benefits. Policies motivated by political gain will
inflict public pain. Why should anyone applaud?"

We now know that many of the European participants in Kyoto have missed their targets. The lack of real analysis and debate of that point in German media has been deafening. Yet the lack of real analysis and debate on virtually any issue has long been a tradition in most coverage of the Bush administration over the past six years. Typically, the coverage does not get too much further than: Bush = Bad.

Yet, in rare instances, responsible voices have broken through the thickets of bias and confrontation.

The first example is a tagesschau interview with Karl-Heinz Kamp of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, a foundation affiliated with Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats. The opening paragraph correctly depicts the transatlantic debate over the environment as "heated" - yet warns that it would be wrong to celebrate it as a transatlantic fight. Mr. Kamp correctly notes that Germany must genuinely engage the United States and other nations on the environment - not dictate absolute positions from on-high - and then vilify those who do not go along. He emphasizes that - despite George Bush's "Darth Vader-like" poll numbers in much of Western Europe (which also have more to do with media-driven vilification <see above photo> than true understanding of Bush and his politics) - that many Germans recognize the importance of strong transatlantic relations.

A second hopeful example is to be found - of all places - at Tagesspiegel. Amidst advertisements for a book by former Guantanamo inmate Murat Kurnaz and a typical smear photo of George Bush - a small gem of intellectual honesty sits like a diamond in the rough.

Christoph von Marschall, Tagesspiegel's Washington correspondent, published an article that actually discusses the differences in policy and outlook between the United States and Germany. The headline and photo - which push negative images - were likely added by the online editors. The article itself delves into the political context of the debate in the United States and acknowledges that Kyoto was rejected by the US Senate (95-0) in 1997 well before George W. Bush ever assumed office. It admits that Germany and other European partners will fail to uphold their Kyoto commitments - a commitment they have attempted to force on the United States despite that nation's concern that such an agreement could cost millions of jobs and billions of dollars in economic loss. Most incredibly, it discusses in some detail the Bush administration's environmental policy and acknowledges that there are areas in which the United States is ahead of Germany. He writes:

"Bush has, for example, created a billion dollar project to develop emission-free coal power plants. As in Germany, around 50% of the energy comes from coal. Thanks to Bush, America will have a reduced emission or even an emission-free coal plant on the energy net by 2012, years ahead of Germany. The proportion of renewable energies from wind, sun and water is almost as high as in Germany. Additionally, Bush is spending billions to support the gradual transition from oil-based gasoline to biofuels like Ethanol."

Given the fact that Mr. Marschall has offered positive comments about Bush and his policies, it is quite remarkable that his work made it past the editor's desk. (Perhaps Malte Lehming is on vacation?) This respect for balance and fact could be a sign of hope - and it is certainly a sign that at least one German correspondent possesses some degree of intellectual honesty.

Overall though, the "environment" issue has been characterized in German media by conflict, confrontation and transatlantic hostility. One can only hope that the small but growing trend towards moderation and engagement will continue to move in a positive direction - despite the many voices of division.

Top White House aide Karl Rove has been told by prosecutors he won't be charged with any crimes in the investigation into the leak of a CIA officer's identity, his lawyer said Tuesday, lifting a heavy burden from one of President Bush's most trusted advisers.

Not a happy day for SPIEGEL ONLINE and the likes... For weeks and months on end they painted a grim picture of the Bush administration's policies in the Valerie Plame case. Karl Rove's chances to survive the investigation politically seemed virtually nil, and Bush - of course - had to bear the dire consequences.

Hard to say what was worse for the German media in the last week: the early demise of Mr. Zarkawi or Rove's vindication. In both cases, the positive fallout for the Bush administration is hardly bearable für the anti-Bush media crowd in Germany.

Ah well, never mind. BUSH IS IN TROUBLE AGAIN!This just in, from the "independent experts of the British Oxford Research Group" (quote Tagesschau): The war against terror is bound to fail!

Never mind that the Oxford Research Group is a well known left-wing entity, much praised by peace initiatives for their aim "to assist in the building of a more secure world without nuclear weapons and to promote nonviolent solutions to conflict." Of course, the Oxford Research Group has a proud history of denigrading the anti-terror policies of the U.S. One of the study's authors, Paul Rogers, is a fervent critic of the U.S. policy toward Iraq. "Independent experts"? Hmm...

On a day like this the German media accept any warm body critizising George W. Bush...

It has happened before: Members of the German media have tried and convicted American soldiers of alleged war crimes before they ever go to trial. The latest case involves an article featured on the homepage of ARD tagesschau, a large, state-sponsored news program:

The headline above speaks of a "massacre" even though it has not been conclusively determined that the killings were part of an actual massacre. Additionally, the lead paragraph claims that the 24 civilians involved were "murdered." Certainly, if an investigation and trial determine that the soldiers in question are, in fact, guilty of murder and participation in a massacre, they should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. But the bottom line is that the German media has no right to conclusively label the killings murders (and thus imply that the soldiers are murderers) until all the facts are known and until said soldiers are found guilty and convicted.

The fact that other media outlets, including ZDF and the BBC, have chosen their words more carefully further highlights ARD's blatant bias and lack of professionalism. Just compare this ZDF piece to the ARD piece. You will notice that ZDF has a question mark after the word "massacre" and reports that the soldiers allegedly killed the 24 civilians in an act of revenge and that they may well stand trial for murder. In other words, ARD immediately jumped to the conclusion that the soldiers are murderers, ZDF did not.

Ironically, the same ARD journalists who can't seem to stop screaming about the denial of judicial due process to Guantanamo inmates are not even willing to afford the same privilege to American soldiers, despite the fact that American soldiers stood guard for decades and guaranteed their freedom of speech during the Cold War.In the ARD world, Guantanamo terrorists are innocent until proven guilty, American soldiers guilty until proven innocent. The agenda of ARD and many on the Angry Left in dealing with the alleged massacre is best summarized in the following passage by John Gibson:

"It was last November and according to the story that is now shaping up, Marines went on a rampage after one of their own was killed by a roadside bomb. In the end, it appears they killed 24 people, including women and children.

The original story of the incident said the civilians were also killed by the roadside bomb that killed the Marine. That appears to be not true and the military is running a full-scale investigation. If it turns out to be not true, then the crime is doubled: first the massacre, then the cover-up.

I'm against massacres of civilians — I think we all are. I'm against cover-ups — you probably are too.

But I'm also against taking an incident in which our troops overreact and commit an arguably criminal act and making it stand for the entire war. The war in Iraq is not the story of massacres by Americans. If Iraqis know their own history they know this is true. Massacres have been committed in Iraq by warring parties for millennia piled on millennia. This is the part of the world that was in on the massacre game early, played it often and the last character to be up to his eyeballs in massacres was the very guy we went in to regime change: Saddam Hussein himself.

Those people who oppose the war and want to make those who supported it pay with shame, embarrassment and a complete loss of credibility and reputation, want desperately for this massacre — if it turns out to be what happened — to be the name this war is known by forever. Haditha — My Lai — Iraq — Vietnam: it all fits together neatly in a slime fest designed to win elections and set the direction of the history books.

The Iraq War may not be the best war we ever fought. When the dust settles we'll know for sure. But it accomplished a great goal that no one else had managed for the last 15 years at least: ridding the world of Saddam. No matter what the political spinners say, that was a great thing. And the Iraq War should be known for that fact — Saddam is gone — not for one incident of alleged revenge killing in a place called Haditha." (emphasis ours)

That is exactly what this is about for ARD, SPIEGEL ONLINE, Stern, SZ and other members of the anti-American German media establishment. This is about shaming the United States of America and those who supported the war, regardless of the facts, right or wrong. This is about seizing the moral high ground, pure and simple. The killing of two dozen Iraqi civilians suddenly matters to the German media elite. Why? Because it has the potential to discredit the United States, Bush and supporters of the war. Conversely, the same media cynics stood by and largely ignored the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians during the Hussein regime. Today they stand by and ignore the fact that their own government continues to promote trade with a government guilty of an ongoing campaign of mass murder in Sudan.

Finally, to top it all off, Germany's media cynics continue to blatantly mislead the German people by insinuating that the American media is somehow in bed with the Bush administration and only presenting a heroic view of the war that ignores the suffering. The most recent examples come from correspondents Udo Lielischkies of ARD in Washington (who claims the US media is only presenting a one-sided, heroic view of the war) and Sebastian Heinzel of SPIEGEL ONLINE in New York (who claims that almost nothing in American society or media exists to remind people of the war). Apparently these "journalists" just haven't seen the daily television news or read many newspapers while in the United States. They must have missed the thousands and thousands of articles and televised news features on bombings, beheadings, killings and kidnappings in Iraq run day for day for day in the US media with no positive story in sight. They must have missed all of Michael Moore's books and films, (quite an accomplishment for a German!) They must have missed Noam Chomsky and Gore Vidal and Cindy Sheehan and Air America. They must have missed George Clooney's Syriana. They must have missed the recent parade of retired generals calling for Don Rumsfeld's head. They must have missed John Murtha and Cobra II. They must have missed the daily casualty count on CNN, FoxNews, MSNBC and every other significant news network in the United States.

Simply put: The "journalists" in question must be blind, deaf and dumb. Or they must be lying our their asses to the German people. We strongly suspect it's the latter...

UPDATE #2: Below is ARD's confusing new homepage summary of its latest Haditha piece. The headline calls the Haditha incident a "massacre" while the introductory paragraph that follows speaks of an "alleged massacre." So which is it at this point? As a reader, you really wouldn't know by looking at tagesschau online.

Unfortunately, ARD continues to call the 24 killings "murder." Again, whether it was murder or not ought to be determined by the appropriate legal and investigative authorities, not by the mainstream media or anyone else.

UPDATE #3: American troops are also guilty until proven innocent at SPIEGEL ONLINE. The Haditha incident has given SPON and other members of the Angry Left a new excuse to make further brain-dead comparisons to Vietnam.

UPDATE #4: Now members of the German media are referring to wide segments of the US military as "White Trash." Where does this end...?

Put away your Watergate knives. No scandal here. Move along people. Ok, so maybe the German intelligence service (known as the Bundesnachrichtendienst or BND) helped the United States select a bombing target here or there in 2003. But that doesn't mean a thing! It doesn't mean they broke their pledge to keep Germany out of Iraq. Case closed. Drop it!

That's the message published in a commentary currently on Germany's prominent state-run "tagesschau" news website. In the article, entitled "Two BND Agents Still Don't Make a War", author and ARD journalist Tobias Haeuser bends over backwards to downplay charges that the former Schroeder administration provided intelligence to the United States for the selection of targets during the Iraq War in 2003. He also unquestioningly accepts German Foreign Minister Steinmeier's (SPD) claim that the BND did not actively support American combat operations.

Of course if someone like Tony Blair, George W. Bush or Angela Merkel were ever accused of such high-level wrongdoing, Mr. Haeuser and his colleagues would be busily scraping the bottom of the investigative journalism barrel for any conceivable shred of evidence to substantiate the charges. They would be drooling with skepticism and ominously flashing their Watergate knives with the determination of hungry piranhas. But this is different: The red-green coalition government was ideologically aligned with the mainstream media like few German governments before it, particularly on the Iraq War. And despite its repeated failings, numerous German journalists continue to defend the Schroeder government like the loyal little vassals that they truly are. So when anyone starts to uncover uncomfortable facts about the former government that expose its obvious hypocrisy, an army of angry poodles like Mr. Haeuser quickly converge to bark away the charges before they are ever fully investigated.

And naturally Mr. Haeuser quickly identifies the true culprit behind the entire scandal. You guessed it: The United States. He writes:

"Two agents of the German intelligence agency stayed in Baghdad during the Iraq War in 2002 and did their jobs. They collected information on the Iraq War and informed the German federal government about the course of combat operations.

That is exactly their job. And they did that job: Foreign reconnaissance in Iraq, also during the war so that Germany could have a minimal degree of its own information on the course of the war. That is, in fact, the lesson from the false information from the US intelligence services on alleged weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. (...)

The USA needs two German Agents?

The image is really quite ridiculous that the USA, with the most modern electronic war machinery in the world, would be dependent on the help of two German BND agents for locating targets for bomb attacks in Baghdad.

It is interesting, above all, where the speculation comes from that the BND supposedly actively helped the US military in the war. Of all places out of the USA, once again. When US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice came to Berlin a few weeks ago, the Washington Post published that the German government also supposedly knew about the illegal CIA flights and kidnappings. The plan worked, in Germany the discussion is only about the role of the German federal government and not about the real scandal: That the USA has people abducted and tortured.

"Another Track is Laid

This time the same plan. Before Angela Merkel's trip to Washington another track (to mislead the German media and public) is being laid again with this goal: The German Chancellor shouldn't even bother to make a fuss because the Germans were also involved in the Iraq War just as in the CIA affair. That is, however, by no means so."

Of course! The Washington Post (that bastion of conservatism) was in cahoots with the Bush administration all along to distract the German public from the real scandal. Why didn't anyone but Mr. Haeuser notice that! It was all part of one large, devious "plan" and it worked brilliantly. And now those cunning Americans are trying it again by planting allegations about the two BND agents in Iraq. How fortunate we are to have courageous German journalists to uncover these neocon machinations!

Ok. Is anyone else getting scared yet? Yes, this is considered "serious" German journalism. These sorts of wild fantasies and conspiracy theories about American "plans" are coming directly from the pen of a German journalist working at the main studio of Germany's state-sponsored flagship media outlet in Berlin. It doesn't get too much more "mainstream" than that. Can anyone guess how the German media might be having a negative impact on transatlantic relations now?

And, oh yeah, according to Mr. Haeuser it was the "false information from the US intelligence services" that led everyone to believe that Saddam had WMD. The Germans are just so far above that - no arrogant condescension on Mr. Haeuser's part there. Whoops! Just don't read the following information:

"And it wasn't just the United States that was concerned about Iraq's efforts. By 2002, British, Israeli and German intelligence services had also concluded that Iraq was probably far enough along in its nuclear weapons program that it would be able to put together one or more bombs at some point in the second half of this decade. The Germans were actually the most fearful of all—in 2001 they leaked their estimate that Iraq might be able to develop its first workable nuclear device in 2004."

But hey, we shouldn't allow ourselves to be distracted by little facts like that. After all, why should German journalists ever investigate German politicians when it is so obvious that America and Bush are really the center of "the plan" and the source of all the world's problems? Bark...bark...

Update #2: Sueddeutsche has the latest round of speculation on whether the BND story is all just one big "disinformation campaign of the Americans." Apparently Minister President for the state of Rheinland-Pfalz Kurt Beck (SPD), buys into the idea. He also happens to be up for reelection in two months.

When SPIEGEL ONLINE accuses your media organization of bias on Iraq and is actually right, you know you must be in some serious hot water. So it was last week when ARD Tagesschau, Germany's famous state-sponsored, fifteen minute evening news program referred to terrorist murderers responsible for the deaths of over 100 innocent people in Iraq as "regime opponents" or "Regimegegner." The response from SPIEGEL ONLINE was surprisingly swift and cogent:

120 dead, countless injured - Iraq was hit by a wave of terror on Thursday. In the "Tagesschau" not terrorists but instead "regime opponents" were made responsible for the violent acts against pilgrims and police recruits. In the meantime the ARD itself finds that (formulation) to be "unfortunate."

As SPIEGEL ONLINE correctly points out, this more than "unfortunate" formulation is particularly disturbing because the German word "Regimegegner" was also frequently used during the Cold War to refer to anti-Communist, pro-democracy dissidents including Vaclav Havel and Lech Walesa. Authors Wittrock and Mueller continue:

"True Regime Opponents are Appalled

Those who once rightfully carried the title regime opponent have expressed outrage at the title used by "Tagesschau." The GDR dissident and former employee of the Birthler agency, Erhart Neubert, warned in a discussion with SPIEGEL ONLINE of the careless use of language: "Terms such as freedom fighter, resister or regime opponent are not appropriate for terrorist actions. The assassins in Iraq should be referred to as terrorists."

Obviously, Mr. Neubert is right. Unfortunately it has taken SPIEGEL ONLINE three years to come to the same conclusion. It has also taken three years for the publication to concede that Iraq is a democracy and that something other than bombings has taken place there since 2003. In the article the authors point out that the word "regime" has negative connotations in German and that Tagesschau's use of the word wrongly implies that the Islamofascists who perpetrated the mass killings were somehow opposing an undemocratic, absolutist state. They write:

"A Regime is Hostile towards the People

In short: A democratically legitimized government is no regime. Even if the dictionary speaks neutrally of a "form of government" in its original sense. Today, the term regime occupies a negative space (in the German language), the meaning of the word has developed into a bad one, the linguist speaks of a "perjoration," a deterioration in meaning. A regime is hostile towards people, a dictatorial government, not one that has come to power through free elections.

Regime opponents or critics can only be those who stand up against a government marked by injustice, tyranny or capriciousness. Under Saddam Hussein there were Iraqi regime opponents. And particularly in the context of the eastern bloc states the term was a synonym for freedom-loving dissidents. To address murdering terrorists on the most watched German news program with the same word as Andrei Sacharov, Jelena Bonner or Vaclav Havel is, to put it mildly, a bit off base."

This is slow but certain progress. Now even SPIEGEL ONLINE openly admits that Iraq's government is fundamentally democratic and that "a democratically legitimized government is no regime." Chapeau!

Regrettably though, the staff of "Tagesschau" has been anything but forthcoming in admitting and correcting its obvious blunder. To simply shrug-off the mischaracterization of terrorist mass-murderers as "regime opponents" as "unfortunate" is sad testimony to the program's inability to correct its own endemic, over-the-top bias. It would seem that "Tagesschau," along with numerous other German media outlets, remains determined to follow the maxim that there is no such thing as good news on Iraq.

Endnote: Before anyone gets too euphoric about SPIEGEL ONLINE, keep in mind that the publication has also been busily bad-mouthing major American corporations of late - one of its favorite pastimes. Recent targets include Coca-Cola, Morgan Stanley, General Motors and Ford.

Correction: Special thanks to one of our commenters who pointed out that Tagesschau at 8 PM (20:00) is a 15 minute news program, not a half-hour news program as we initially stated.

Last week, Tagesschau, a major state-run television news program posted a photo essay on the United States entitled "Unknown America: Beyond the Stars" by German photographer and journalist Sebastian Hesse. Not surprisingly, it has the mandatory gun-shop photo and the pictures not taken in Washington, DC or New York City seem to focus mainly on run-down buildings. And naturally, out of the essay's 28 photos, Tagesschau selected the gun-shop pic to run with its article.

Germany's media painstakingly avoid the term "terrorists" for the Palestinian terrorists who coldbloodedly killed a pregnant Israeli woman and her four children. Of course, the German media don't hesitate to identify terrorists, when the killing is in Madrid, Riad, Manila, Mazedonia, etc., etc.

In the case of Israelis, it's not barbaric terrorism ... it's "Cycle of Violence".

Naomi Regan is a novelist living in Jerusalem. I'm on her mailing list. This is her comment to the terror attack:

Two Islamic "heroes" opened fire on a car carrying a woman in her eighth month of pregnancy, along with her four little girls. They opened fire on the car, and when it spun out of control, they walked towards it and shot the woman and her daughters one by one. ... I'm trying to envision the kind of people that could shoot a pregnant woman and an eleven, nine, seven and two year old. I'm trying. But all I come up with is Nazis. All I see are Auschwitz criminals. I guess that's Islam. I guess that's the way they honor their Prophet Mohammad. I guess that's the honor they bring to their Allah.

stern.de - the online version of the German weekly left-wing magazine stern - reports on today's (February 6, 2004) "terror attack" ("Terroranschlag") in the Moscow underground. Almost 40 people were killed.

And this is the vocabulary stern.de used for the terror attack on a bus end of January 2004 in Jerusalem, that killed 10 Israelis: "Anschlag" ("attack") and "Selbstmordanschlag" ("suicide attack").

Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair are entitled to claim a large share of the credit for Libya's surprising announcement. To an extent that cannot be precisely measured, the fate of Saddam Hussein, who was ousted from power by the American military with British backing after endless prevaricating about Iraqi weapons programs, must have been an important consideration in Libya's decision.

It seems that the German media's so-called America "experts" could either use a refresher course in remedial US history or are simply rewriting the history books as they go along. Recently (Nov. 29, 2003), several members of the German media (FAZ, tagesschau, N24) were so desperate to downplay the success of President Bush's stunning Thanksgiving Day visit to US troops in Iraq that they printed the following "historic" comparison:

"Still observers point to the fact that a short visit in Iraq will not change everything with one blow. The American troops in Iraq have to reckon with continued resistance and the expected rise in popularity for Bush could also be over very quickly. They point to former US President Lyndon B. Johnson who visited the troops on a spectacular trip to Vietnam but then clearly lost the 1968 election to his opponent Richard Nixon."

A mistake of this magnitude might lead some to reach the conclusion that most of the "America experts" in the German media were too busy throwing rocks at police and getting high back in 1968 to pay close attention to the US Presidential election.

Just to clear things up a bit, Lyndon B. Johnson didn't even run for the Presidency in 1968 after announcing he would not seek re-election at the beginning of the year. Not only that, but the 1968 election between Republican Richard Nixon and Democrat Hubert Humphrey turned out to be a hotly contended race which Nixon won by the thinnest of margins and was by no means "clearly lost" by the Democrats.

German journalists frequently and gleefully report on the "ignorance" of the average American, always with a hint of condescending superiority of course. It seems, though, that they aren't quite the brilliant know-it-alls they fancy themselves to be either...